This Is Your Brain on Drugs

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This article is about the campaign. For the episode of The Riches, see This Is Your Brain On Drugs (The Riches).

This Is Your Brain on Drugs was a large-scale US anti-narcotics campaign by Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) launched in 1987, that used two televised public service announcements (PSAs) and a related poster campaign.[1]

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[edit] 1987 version

The first PSA, from 1987, showed a man who held up an egg and said, "This is your brain," before picking up a frying pan and adding, "This is drugs." He then cracks open the egg, fries the contents, and says, "This is your brain on drugs." Finally he looks up at the camera and asks, "Any questions?" A shorter version of this, simply showing a close-up of an egg dropping into a frying pan, was used a few years later. [2]

[edit] 1998 version

The second PSA, from 1998, featured actress Rachael Leigh Cook, who, as before, holds up an egg and says, "this is your brain", before lifting up a frying pan with the words, "this is heroin", after which she places the egg on a kitchen counter - "this is what happens to your brain after snorting heroin" - and slams the pan down on it. She lifts the pan back up, saying, "and this is what your body goes through", in reference to the remnants of the egg now dripping from the bottom of the pan and down her arm. She then says, "It's not over yet" and proceeds to destroy everything in the kitchen, with each thing saying, "and this is what your family goes through", "and your friends", et cetera. She finally drops the pan on the counter of the now-wrecked kitchen, and says, "Any questions?"[3]

[edit] Usage and parody in popular culture

The phrase "this is your brain on drugs", was quickly popularised by teenagers and young adults during the period that these PSAs were broadcast. The original version was spoofed in popular culture such as the "Weird Al" Yankovic "I Can't Watch This" from his album Off the Deep End, ridiculed by comedian Bill Hicks and mocked on the sitcoms Married… with Children and Dinosaurs. It was also parodied on t-shirts and posters that amended the original tag line "This is your brain on drugs, side of bacon".

In the movie Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, a TV is showing a version of the original ad, with the man played by an uncredited Johnny Depp (who starred in the original Nightmare movie). Freddy then enters the ad, mocks the man and kills him.

The second version has been satirized in films such as Scary Movie 2 and on the premiere episode of the television show Robot Chicken, for which Cook reprised her role. In the Robot Chicken version, Cook goes on a rampage, beating innocent bystanders with the frying pan originally used to demonstrate the drug and its impact.

The Ska band Mustard Plug has a song entitled "Brain on Ska"

TV Guide went on to name it as one of the top one hundred television advertisements ever.[4]

In Tony Hawk's Underground, skating out of bounds will make a crashing sound, teleport you back to the level, and display different messages, one of the more common being "This is your brain on drugs."

In a Far Side cartoon, two chickens are watching a TV ad which says "This is your egg. This is your egg covered with bugs."

In the Arthur episode "The Rat Who Came to Dinner" when Arthur is imagining what it would be like with his teacher (Mr. Ratburn) living with him, at one point he is watching television when Mr. Ratburn enters the room with a balloon. "This is your brain," he says, and as he deflates the balloon, he states, "This is your brain when you watch too much junky TV."

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS. The Museum of Broadcast Communications online archive.
  2. ^ The Partnerships "Fried Egg" TV Message. Drugfree.org press release. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America (October 24, 2006). DOI:13, 2007 August 13, 2007.
  3. ^ The Partnership's Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Creation of Campaign Advertisements (press release). National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign (January 24, 2005).
  4. ^ CNN report on the commercial